Friday, July 12, 2013

When the door bell ranged at midnight

It
was midnight at the Mysore campus. The clock struck 1 am. I was sleeping
in my room. My roommate had left a week ago. That was quite unfortunate. I
hated being alone. The empty bed was scary a bit at night.

Suddenly
the door bell ranged. The loud sound woke me up in a nanosecond. I got up and
stumbled like a dream-walker on the floor. I switched on the light and searched
for my specks. It was stashed towards the telecom. I quickly put it on and
looked at the mess in the room.

The
door bell ranged again. This time more loudly. I panicked. Could it be the
house-keeper for inspection? But why the hell would she come at midnight? I
rushed forward and collected the nearly dried clothes, lying on the sofa.
Technically speaking, we were not supposed to wash clothes in the room. There
was a paid laundry service for that. But why pay extra bucks when one could
easily buy a Rin soap and do the job free of cost?

I
hid the clothes in my wardrobe. Then went to open the door.

"Who
is this?" I shouted.

No
reply. The door bell ranged again. Now I was starting to get afraid. Why wasn't
the outside person answering to my question? Who the hell could it be? I
decided to open the door after a quick thinking. No man/criminal can pass the
security guards stationed outside so easily. Infosys security is very
well-known for their good work. But my mother's face flashed in my mind. The
look on her face when she would know that I had openned the door to let a
stranger in,changed my mind.

I
shouted again for some answer. Still no reply. Instead somebody started banging
at the door angrily. That someone was clearly not liking my lateness. I thought
of making a call to my friends but didn't. We had a scheduled test in the
morning and I didn't want to ruin anybody's sleep. I finally decided to call
the help desk and stretched my hands towards the telecom.

Suddenly
I heard some voices. Some very impatient voices. I nearly flattened my ears at
the door and listened hard. A female voice I could hear faintly. It was
followed by some more girls speaking in a hushed tone. Feeling relieved, I
opened the door. It was totally dark outside. A faint street light illuminated
the floor.

"Happy
birthday!!!" Six girls shouted at me.

They
sounded tried and sleepy. They had a huge white creamy cake with them. The only
problem was that I didn't know them. Nor it was my birthday.

They
stared hard at me for a few moments. Then a brave girl holding the large cake,
turned towards her friends.

"What's
her room number ?" She said frowning slightly.

"208..."
a girl standing behind her replied and went searching few steps forward
towards the next room.

"Sorry!
Wrong door..!!" a tall girl in the front apologised to me and rushed
forward with the crowd towards the next room.